A top dancer with the Bolshoi Theatre has asked a court in Moscow to annul official reprimands from the theatre, in the wake of the acid attack on artist director Sergei Filin.

The late-night attack that almost blinded Filin on Jan. 17 has exposed a seething ferment of rivalries at the ballet, perhaps Russia's best-known cultural symbol.

Bolshoi dancer Pavel Dmitrichenko and two alleged accomplices are in jail awaiting trial, and the investigation continues.

Immediately after the attack, the spotlight fell on Nikolai Tsiskaridze, the 39-year-old Georgian-born principal dancer and teacher who has been at the Bolshoi since 1992, and had clashed with the theatre's leadership.

Bolshoi director Anatoly Iksanov was quoted as saying in February that he saw the attack on Filin as "a logical result of the excesses created above all by ... Tsiskaridze" and accusing the dancer of "mud-slinging". He and many performers said they suspected a wider conspiracy.

Tsiskaridze told the BBC he felt he had been the main target of the attack. He said management was using it as a pretext for a "witch hunt" against him, and compared the atmosphere at the theatre to 1937 – the height of Josef Stalin's deadly purges.

Tsiskaridze petitioned a Moscow court on Tuesday to annul two written warnings he had received from the management.

Multiple reprimands can be grounds for dismissal under Russian labour law and Tsiskaridze, who was represented by a lawyer at an opening hearing on Tuesday, has said he believes the management is trying to drive him out.

The judge at the hearing, Yevgeny Komissarov, said Tsiskaridze had been reprimanded twice in February, once for giving an interview without permission from the theatre's press service.

Tsiskaridze's lawyer, Svetlana Volodina, said there were no grounds for the disciplinary action.

"Freedom of speech is guaranteed in the constitution, as is his freedom to express himself," she said.